Intensive Dairy Farming

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I am very grateful to have been granted this important debate on an issue that has not thus far spent too much time in the headlines, but which is fundamental to the way of life of many of my constituents. Today’s attendance demonstrates the great interest that the farming community and people who live in rural Britain have in the subject. It is a great pleasure and an added bonus, Mrs Riordan, that the debate should come under your chairmanship; that makes this, my first Westminster Hall debate, a privilege rather than the ordeal that it might otherwise have been.

I shall begin in perhaps something of an odd place, by recording what the debate is not about. It is not about—at least, not specifically about—the super-dairy that developers wish to land in Nocton in my constituency, in close proximity to a number of other villages: Branston, Dunston, Potterhanworth and Metheringham, to name but four. Now that the planning application has been validated, that issue will be properly considered in due course by North Kesteven district council. Nor is the debate about the planning process itself, at least not at this stage. Planning matters are rightly devolved to local government, where they are best dealt with, and this Government have made it clear that that arrangement will continue and be extended, which is to be welcomed.

What the debate is about—and I am pleased that Members have, for the first time, the opportunity properly to consider the issues surrounding proposals such as the one for Nocton—is the question of how we should go about producing what has been one of the staples of a balanced diet since mankind began to farm animals for his own use. It is also a debate about what is left, and about what should be the future of the British dairy industry after the 13 years of poverty for dairy farmers and their families under the previous Government. I hope that the Minister is now able to tell us that that is being brought to an end.

The simple fact of the matter, and indeed the starting point for any debate about the future of the dairy industry, is that dairy farming in this country has been in crisis for well over a decade. It has been in crisis not merely because central Government previously showed no real interest in British farming, but because of the power of the supermarkets and the other bulk purchasers to drive down prices, which they have done remorselessly and single-mindedly for far too long, without having their wings clipped.

I know that the Minister intends to do something about that. The power of the supermarkets and the large purchasers might be good for consumers in the short term, but it has not been good for farmers—nor, I suspect, is it beneficial for producers or consumers in the long term. It has driven down the price of commodities, including milk, to levels where it has become difficult, if not impossible, for British farmers to make a living or compete with producers across the world.

Those producers—and, most importantly, comparable farmers in other European Union countries—have a lower cost base than their British counterparts, principally because they are unaffected by the gold-plating of the plethora of red tape emanating from Brussels that has stymied the farming industry in this country.

To a large extent, that is an issue for another day and possibly even for another place, but it is not going away and it lies, in one sense, at the heart of this debate. It provides the reason why dairy farmers in particular have been forced to the brink, some of them into insolvency. It also provides the reason for why we are now seeing the first proposals for the sort of dairy farming industry that I know fills many ordinary people and many traditional dairy farmers with horror. Just at the moment when the British farmer is producing the food that the British consumer wishes to buy, in the way the consumer wants it, a recession and continued pressure on prices are forcing the dairy farming community to consider production mechanisms that give rise to grave concerns for animal welfare, local communities and the environment more generally.

It is often said by people in towns who have no real knowledge of how we live in rural Britain, that farmers do not care about the environment or about their animals. That argument is as wrong as it is offensive. In my experience, farmers care more about the environment and their animals than any other section of society does, but they have families to support, which is why in any debate about how we are going to produce our food and our milk in the 21st century, we need to recognise that whatever measures are introduced and whatever decisions are taken, farmers have to be paid a proper price for the food they produce.

If that were already happening with the dairy industry, we would not be having this debate today. If just a few extra pence were paid by consumers for the milk that graces our breakfast tables and tops our interminable mugs of tea, the British dairy industry would not need to consider undergoing the form of fundamental change that proposals such as those for the super-dairy at Nocton involve.

I hope that the Members who have come to today’s debate will join me in the Chamber on 12 January when I seek the House’s permission to introduce a Bill on the super-dairies and the issue of whether farmers receive a fair price for their milk. Those two issues are indisputably and irrevocably intertwined.

My particular concern is that the opening of intensive dairy farming units across the United Kingdom would inevitably drive more small dairy farmers out of the market. The cows that they keep, with which every schoolchild in this country is familiar from an early age, would effectively be replaced by extraordinarily high-yield animals, bred and milked in an intensive setting and with statistically higher occurrences of welfare problems. It is absolutely clear that the public would not support that if they knew about it and if they turned their mind to the question of how they wished their milk to be produced.

The Minister will know that a recent Ipsos MORI poll showed that 61% of the British public would not knowingly buy milk from mega-dairies. That is undoubtedly why many supermarkets have publicly expressed negative views about milk produced in that way, and have indicated that there is, as far as they are concerned, no market for milk produced in super-dairies.

What, one is driven to ask rhetorically, is the point of these intensive dairy farming operations? What is the point of British dairy farming going in that direction? If the British public and the British supermarkets are not going to buy the milk, it will have to go overseas, with all the associated implications for carbon miles. I have to ask, perhaps rhetorically, whether that is the way forward or whether, as I venture to suggest and as I ask the Minister to accept, it is simply better to pay a little more for the milk we need in this country and ensure that we are self-sufficient for all our dairy requirements from our existing farms.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

One of the problems is not that the farmers sell directly to supermarkets, but that they sell to intermediaries who may then sell to supermarkets.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend is correct. The real point is that the price pressure that has come down from the supermarkets, whether through intermediaries or those responsible for purchasing milk production, has been so great that many farmers have been driven out of business, and those who remain in business, however efficient they are, are effectively driven to a point where the costs of production are almost equal—and sometimes greater than—the price that they are being paid for their milk.

The Government will have to grapple with that problem in a way that the previous Government did not. I venture to suggest that we would not be having this debate if we paid our dairy farmers a proper price for their milk, because there would be no need to consider super-dairies.

I have already made it clear that every farmer I have met is concerned more for the welfare of his or her stock than is generally accepted, yet the proposals for mega-dairies undoubtedly give rise to legitimate concerns about the welfare of farm animals. Although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Minister, in his previous utterances, are correct to say that the most significant influence on welfare is the stock keeper, rather than the system, that statement depends on the existing status quo and, with regard to the proposals for Nocton and other mega-dairies, might not take into account potential future developments in the industry.

Future intensive dairy farmers, if we are to go down that route, will have to comply with existing welfare legislation for their animals, a point that I look forward to hearing the Minister confirm. Those animals will need space to move around in and adequate bedding, and all the other regulations for the existing dairy industry will have to be complied with. If we are to go down that route, there is no reason to believe that farmers would not treat their herds as well as the vast majority of small dairy farmers currently treat their own. It would not be in their interests to mistreat their animals, and I do not suppose that that would happen. However, it is equally clear that very large dairies require better monitoring, and different—much more stringent—animal welfare guidelines, and I hope to hear the Minister confirm that.

The point is that although poor welfare can occur in both intensive and less intensive systems, the evidence available from the United States and various other jurisdictions plainly shows that intensive systems are more predisposed to increasing the risk of poor animal welfare. Intensive milk production models are driven almost exclusively by volume; they demand high yields from cows to cover their inherently high set-up and operating costs. The relentless pursuit of more and more litres of milk to reduce the unit costs of production can take its toll on health and welfare, which is what concerns so many people. The toll on health and welfare can reduce the longevity of animals and place pressure and stress on them.

Experience from overseas, as I have indicated, is not promising. The driving up of milk yields through intensive selection has come at the well-documented expense of animal welfare, so the real fear is that mega-dairies in this country would do nothing to address the lameness, infertility and other health problems that already affect too large a proportion of Britain’s existing dairy herd.

However well cows are kept while indoors, it seems to many to be wholly unnatural to keep them inside all year round, and I understand those fears, although it is fair to say that that happens in some colder parts of continental Europe. Not allowing cows outside to graze during the grazing season seems to many to savour of battery farming, someone that this country set its face against a long time ago.

We must not ignore the fact that a lack of access to pasture concerns many people and is often responsible for animal health problems, which I do not exaggerate, as I am sure the Minister will accept. A review carried out by the European Food Safety Authority in 2009 concluded that zero-grazing systems give rise to a higher incidence of various health problems in animals and reduce their capacity to engage in normal social interactions. That concerns many farmers and many consumers when they turn their minds to the question.

Dairy farming has been part of this country’s agricultural economy for many hundreds of years and is part of our rural heritage, as it is in my constituency. That is partly why the reduction in the number of British dairy farmers is of such concern to so many of us. The numbers are frightening: in 2000 there were 23,286 registered dairy production holdings in England and Wales, but today the number is 11,233.

Many of those farmers have gone out of business for reasons to which I have already alluded—they cannot get a good price for their milk and too often have to sell at below the cost of production. I accept that intensive dairy farms could provide economies of scale and allow for greater mechanisation, which would start to reduce those trends, but I hope that the Minister will accept that that must naturally come at the expense of smaller operations.

To put it another way, although such economies of scale are great for the owners of intensive dairy farms, they sound a further death knell for many smaller producers. Although many people say that they would prefer to purchase their milk from smaller producers, there is, as the Minister knows, no requirement to label the origin of milk, a fact that supermarkets know well and wish to see continue.